Some Thoughts on Chayote

Chayote by David Monniaux 2005 (from the Wikipedia article)

Lat night I tried cooking with chayote for the first time. Since I have read that it is often treated like summer squash I halved it and pitted it and chopped it up with some yellow squash. I was surprised to see one large seed rather than the rows of seeds one finds in most members of the gourd family. I stir fired them with some onions, celery and garlic and then simmered in some leftover adobo marinade (Rick Bayless' adobo recipe from his book Mexican Everyday)

Chayote and Yellow Squash Adobo

By the time the yellow squash was cooked, the chayote definitely retained a lot of it's raw crispness. This could be a boon to folks that don't enjoy the softened texture of many cooked vegetables. Another possible use might be shredded and used in a slaw or stir fry. The Wikipedia article references Australians using them to stretch apples in pie because apples were difficult to obtain. It is an interesting vegetable that would work well in a squash stir fry and an apple pie as well!

Shrimp13